Lynda La Plante - Twisted

Lena rolled over, thumped the pillow with her fist. Just thinking about what had happened that morning made her furious all over again. Two years’ separation and here she was still annoyed by all the things Marcus did, and had done before he had left. Yet again she was wasting her time on him.

At some point she must have fallen asleep, and with all the bedroom lights on. The phone ringing woke her with such a start that for a few moments she was completely disorientated, but then swung her legs to the ground and grabbed the receiver. It was seven a.m.

‘Lena, it’s me, I’ve just noticed your missed calls,’ Marcus said abruptly.

‘You took your time getting back to me. I have had the school calling me; I have tried ringing her, just what the hell is going on? Where is she?’

‘She had a sleepover,’ he said, and his voice sounded slurred.

‘Yes I know, but she told Serena’s mother on Saturday afternoon she was going to see you, and she never went back there so Mrs Newman presumed she was staying with you.’

‘She wasn’t with me, I never saw her.’

‘What?’

‘I just said Amy never came here to me, I haven’t heard from her all weekend or yesterday. I thought she was with her friend. I mean, she mentioned some sleepover – I dunno, what’s all the panic about?’

Lena wanted to scream.

‘Is she at school?’ he asked stupidly.

‘No she is not, I just told you, they called here, and I have not seen her.’

‘What about this girl she was staying with?’

‘For heaven’s sake, Marcus, don’t you listen to what I am saying? I have spoken to them. I talked to Serena’s mother and she picked her up on Saturday morning and drove her to Fulham. Amy then told Mrs Newman she was going to see you and would be back in the evening, but she never turned up.’

‘Why didn’t they call me?’

She gritted her teeth. ‘I have no idea, but we have to find her. If she didn’t come over to you on Saturday afternoon, it means she’s been somewhere else since then and she is still not back at school.’

‘Well I don’t know where she is,’ he said lamely, almost as an excuse. Clearly he still hadn’t realized that something could have happened to his daughter. Lena swallowed and gripped the phone tighter.

‘Marcus, she has not been seen for over two days now. Don’t you understand how serious this is? Now think if there is someone she might have gone to see.’

He said something inaudible, and Lena had to ask him to repeat it. But he cleared his throat.

‘Sorry, I was just thinking, you have talked to Serena?’

‘No,’ she snapped. ‘Only her mother.’

‘And they had no idea where she is?’

‘For God’s sake, Marcus, try and concentrate. I am asking you to think if she was friendly with anyone you’ve met recently?’

‘Erm, to be honest I’ve not met any of her friends. When she’s here they, well, they might come over but on the whole she’s usually on her own and we go out to see a movie, or just watch TV…’

‘Think, Marcus. Is there anyone she might have gone to see?’

‘I’m fucking thinking,’ he groaned.

Lena closed her eyes and sighed with impatience. ‘Were you at home on Saturday afternoon?’

‘No, I was at a football match.’

‘So she could have gone to see you and you weren’t in. Does she have a key?’

‘Yes of course she does, but if she was here she never left me a note and I didn’t get back until Sunday…’

‘You mean you were staying somewhere else?’

‘Yes, at a friend’s from football.’

She squeezed her eyes more tightly shut, clenching her teeth. ‘Okay, what about a boyfriend, do you know if she has a boyfriend?’

‘She’s not mentioned one. Look, you know you’re firing off questions but I could be asking the same ones of you. Do you know if she was seeing a boy? And you’d know more than me who her close friends would be. We should start ringing around.’

‘But her friends are at the school, so they would be there and not with their parents. Marcus, I don’t know what we should do. I mean, do we wait until a bit later this morning and call around or…’ Her voice trailed off.

‘Let me just go over it all. She was last seen on Saturday afternoon, and no one has heard from her since and it’s now Tuesday morning, so what about her mobile? Have you tried calling her?’

‘Of course, it goes straight to voicemail; I’ve tried numerous times. I think we should go to the police.’

‘Hang on, hang on. Obviously we have to think about that, but at the same time, we could be getting into a panic over Amy just being a bit of a truant and taking off with a pal.’

‘She has never been a bit of a truant, for God’s sake. She has never done anything like this before, and it’s totally out of character. She always calls me when she stays over with you, she calls me if she’s having a sleepover. I have never known her not to make sure I knew where she was and the more I think of it, the worse I am starting to feel. Something is really not right.’

‘Okay, call the hospitals,’ sighed Marcus. ‘She may have had an accident, and we can both start doing that.’

‘You start calling them, Marcus, I am going to the police. If anything, I should have gone to them earlier. I’ll call you, stay by your phone.’

She didn’t wait for him to reply but slammed down the receiver. She pulled on a pair of jeans, sneakers, a polo-neck sweater, and a camel-hair coat. She didn’t even comb her hair or check her makeup. She was in the Lexus within minutes of hanging up on Marcus, and she drove to the local Richmond police station, so tense her knuckles were white as she clenched the steering wheel, all the while keeping up a mantra to herself of ‘please don’t let anything bad have happened to her, please don’t let anything have happened to my baby.’

Marcus had woken early with a terrible hangover and raging thirst. He had drunk a pint of water, taken four Paracetamol tablets and a spoonful of Andrews Liver Salts as his stomach churned from the curry he’d eaten the previous evening. There had been the wine before the Indian, then he’d had a lot with his meal and was very drunk by the time he got home and collapsed. He was about to go back to bed when he noticed his answer machine blinking. It was all too tempting not to pick up his calls and, on hearing Lena’s terse message, he was at first in two minds whether to bother calling her back. But he could see she had also made a second call with no message so knew something must be up.

The previous evening had not exactly been a celebration but he felt the meeting with the lawyers had been more than productive as Lyons assured him they would be successful and he even insinuated that Marcus might not have to work again but could live well if he invested carefully. They had a good lunch, Marcus paid, and it was expensive, as Lyons had chosen a very posh restaurant in Regent Street, but so far he’d been worth his heavy fees. During the lead-up to the meeting he’d been quite aggressive, constantly reminding Marcus that he would require extensive details of his wife’s income and the value of the property and its contents. There was no point in ‘pussyfooting’ around – he had calculated that after seventeen years of marriage Marcus would easily be awarded alimony for the rest of his life. He was certain that he would be awarded half of the monies from the sale of their ‘goods and chattels’, and he would try for fifty per cent of his wife’s very successful business. Marcus did not exactly like the pugnacious and egotistical lawyer, but he had been advised to secure his services as fast as possible just in case Lena might hire him. Lyons loved the notoriety he had garnered from previous cases and he was not just an A-list divorce lawyer, but the toughest of tough operators.